This Strawberry shortcake from scratch is another recipe from Gramma’s Amish Recipe Collection. My Amish Grandmother is an excellent cook and loves to experiment with food. This Recipe for Amish strawberry shortcake is more of a light and refreshing cake, rather than a biscuit style shortcake. This shortcake recipe is made in a cast Iron skillet and can be topped with fresh strawberries and your choice of whipped topping, fresh milk or ice cream. More Notes after the recipe.
Prep time: 15 minutes
Bake time: 40 minutes.
Serves: 8
- 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened.
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 3/4 cups flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Fresh strawberries
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Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together. Add one egg and mix well, then add the remaining egg and mix again.
- In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder. Add one half of the dry ingredients to the creamed butter mixture and then add half of the milk, then add vanilla extract. Mix well to combine. Add the remainder of the dry ingredients and milk, then mix again to combine.
- Lightly grease a 10 inch cast iron skillet (*see note below the photo below) with butter then pour the Amish strawberry shortcake batter into the pan. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Discard the stems of the fresh strawberries then slice the fresh berries and serve with fresh shortcake and whipped cream. Optional: We like to add milk or vanilla ice cream! Notes and Photos below and a few gardening tips for growing fresh strawberries of your own!
Try adding glazed strawberries if you prefer a sweeter dessert! https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/homemade-strawberry-topping/

My favorite thing about summer is being able to grow and enjoy fresh produce, perhaps it is my Amish roots but if I don’t get a garden out, I feel like I am really missing out! These fresh Strawberries were produced in my patch and I may be slightly biased, but they are The Best!! Photo and gardening tips for strawberries below.

Batter for fresh strawberry shortcake. I honestly am not sure the exact reason on why the Amish ladies from my community made more of a cakey shortcake than a biscuit style shortcake . My Mom, who is a former member of the Amish church, thought perhaps they just wanted prepare quick treat for their families during their busy summers and found this cake-like shortcake to be a shortcut to traditional shortcake.

If you do not have a cast Iron skillet you can also bake this Amish Strawberry shortcake in a 9 by 13 inch baking dish. I do find that the shortcake bakes faster around the edges which leaves a small cavern in the center when baked in a cast iron skillet. But, those slightly crispy edges taste amazing!

Feel free to pin for later.

These Strawberries were transplanted from an older patch recently and are thriving this summer. Some tips I’ve gleaned recently for growing fresh strawberries:
Strawberries love mushroom mulch and we have had good success with mulching around our berries yearly. If your berries begin to get smaller and have a lot of rot, then it is probably time to transplant them. You can start a separate patch or you can get rid of the old plants and start fresh for maximum yield. I will be giving my older patch an update this fall and plan on getting rid of most of my plants to allow the remainder some room to breathe. We will see if that works as well! I am fairly new to gardening so I would love to know your favorite gardening hacks in the comments below!
Strawberry season is the best!
I agree! It’s a great time to make all those yummy strawberry dishes.